Your favourite sort of industrial aggregate

[shoulders]

shoulders once told me they used piss as balast

I said piss palace and I was referring to Hofbräuhaus in Munich.

[Underturd]

You're all wrong, the best kind is the gravel they put in a pile just up from your school that you used to go and climb and slide down even after the headmaster said everyone had to stop doing that because it made it spread into the road.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Yea thats a good answer tbf

[touchingcloth]

Hardcore grit.

[shoulders]

Wouldn't true grit be better in the long run?

I don't want to have to line up my grit in a row to tell them off.

[Campbell Soupe]

I'd have to say the original full length The Wicker Man negative, supposedly used to build the M3...

[PlanktonSideburns]

Magine a couple of big boys in decayed hi vis coming round whatever sissy job shoulders has and saying

ARE YOU THE MAN WHO THINKS AGGREGATE IS FUNNY

as he spills his coffe on himself

[dissolute ocelot]

There's lots of stories about places being built out of stone used for ballast, such as the Ebenezer chapel in Charles Street, Cardiff; various roads and buildings in the Eastern United States from the last 400 years; a lot of reclaimed land. A lot of the stories seem to be exaggerated or made up, but there's a bit of truth in some of it. (Some of the stone in Ebenezer chapel is exotic but a lot is from South Wales. I assume Ballast Bank in Inverkeithing, Fife which was next to one of the biggest breakers' yards in Britain might have genuinely had some ballast dumped on it, but who knows, maybe it was just landfill.)

Also, there seems to be confusion between heavy cargo which was carried as low down as possible in ships, and actual ballast which you aren't being paid to carry - ships would prefer to carry bricks or stone they get paid for.

[Brian Freeze]

https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php?msg=3675094
Verdict: unlikely, given all ships by that time would have had seawater ballast tanks.

Thanks yet again Buzby, it was the same person repeating the tall tale. He's not infallible.

[Brian Freeze]

There's lots of stories about places being built out of stone used for ballast, such as the Ebenezer chapel in Charles Street, Cardiff; various roads and buildings in the Eastern United States from the last 400 years; a lot of reclaimed land. A lot of the stories seem to be exaggerated or made up, but there's a bit of truth in some of it. (Some of the stone in Ebenezer chapel is exotic but a lot is from South Wales. I assume Ballast Bank in Inverkeithing, Fife which was next to one of the biggest breakers' yards in Britain might have genuinely had some ballast dumped on it, but who knows, maybe it was just landfill.)

Also, there seems to be confusion between heavy cargo which was carried as low down as possible in ships, and actual ballast which you aren't being paid to carry - ships would prefer to carry bricks or stone they get paid for.

Thankyou, you have reminded me of this place in Orkney.

[Brian Freeze]

bear in mind im strictly an end user, not someone who has a wealth of understanding like buzb, or a sick grit fetishist like Shoulders, crouched and rubbing his legs, like the phantom of the opera looking through a floorboard at a young lady.

Using it instead of sand in a cement mix, you get this thick, plaster like stuff that you can fill really deep holes with, and it sets in about the same time as cement, but has this second stage setting to it, where it gets nice and structurally firm about 10-15 min after you lay it on something, for things like stone work its great as you can build much higher in a day with it. it finishes a dark black colour, its just the shavings from stone quarries im told, so you have to scrape it back in those situations and re-point with something nice in the end but none the less. just a really satisfying agregate to work with, its closer to plaster than wet mud, which is what sand and cement feels like to me, and not as delicate and eye-destroyingly alkaline as old timey lime based plasters. would love to make a wall out of a mix of duff and hydrated lime rather than portland, maybe you would get a nice natural grey out of it, anyway, thats by the by.

hope that helps

Jack from Aberystwyth

Cheers Jack, sounds useful, is it a Welsh thing?

The first two builders merchants selling it from a quick Google search were in Lampeter and Swansea.

Will ask a Cumbrian builder if he's heard of it.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Wouldn't surprise me if it was Welsh, or maybe appears near where there's quarries, like how there's coal dust in all the Georgian era lime plaster in buildings near the railways

[buzby]

Wouldn't surprise me if it was Welsh, or maybe appears near where there's quarries, like how there's coal dust in all the Georgian era lime plaster in buildings near the railways

Outside of Wales, Duff is known as Limestone Dust or Grano Dust - it's basically the small (0-4mm) fines that are produced from the limestone or granite crushing process. I expect it was used in areas where there were stone quarries (or mines, which usually had rock-crushing plants to make money out of the spoil from blasting) in cement in lieu of sand as it was a cheap byproduct that was in plentiful supply, much in the same way that the sand shortages after WW2 led to the development of 'no fines' concrete mixes that used fly ash and clinker from furnaces and power stations.

It's main uses (outside of the areas that use it in cement) are as a bedding material for paving slabs and block paving and as a binding layer (on top of coarser gravels) for the base of artificial lawns (it's a lot harder and grittier than sand so takes being compacted better). It's also sometimes spread onto the top of wet concrete to give a fine surface or rolled into the surface of freshly-laid asphalt as a grip layer.

I can remember my dad using grano dust to make a very fine concrete to redo the step on our front door when I was a kid. It gave a very smooth surface like cement, but was dark grey and rock hard.

[Endicott]

That little hammer that judges use.

[dissolute ocelot]

Regarding crushed stone, in the 18th and 19th centuries, Coade Stone was used for cheap fake stone monuments. It is made from a mix of clays, crushed quartz and flint, and ground glass. It looks like stone but is a type of stoneware pottery and can be moulded and fired. It's very hard and can last longer than conventional stone sculpture (which is often more susceptible to weathering, pollution, and acid rain). These days you'd probably just use concrete.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Outside of Wales, Duff it's known as Limestone Dust or Grano Dust - it's basically the small (0-4mm) fines that are produced from the limestone or granite crushing process. I expect it was used in areas where there were stone quarries (or mines, which usually had rock-crushing plants to make money out of the spoil from blasting) in cement lieu of sand as it was a cheap byproduct that was in plentiful supply, much in the same way that the sand shortages after WW2 led to the development of 'no fines' concrete mixes that used fly ash and clinker from furnaces and power stations.

It's main uses (outside of the areas that use it in cement) are as a bedding material for paving slabs and block paving and as a binding layer (on top of coarser gravels) for the base of artificial lawns (it's a lot harder and grittier than sand so takes being compacted better). It's also sometimes spread onto the top of wet concrete to give a fine surface or rolled into the surface of freshly-laid asphalt as a grip layer.

I can remember my dad using grano dust to make a very fine concrete to redo the step on our front door when I was a kid. It gave a very smooth surface like cement, but was dark grey and rock hard.

Yea thats it, its like in-between a concrete and a sand and cement mix - thats really interesting, I appreciate that

[madhair60]

buzby is a big nerd

[Underturd]

Isn't buzby a big bird? I've seen pictures.